1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to telephone systems, and in particular, to a method for authorizing and validating telephone calls.
2. Description of the Related Art
In telephone communication systems, telephone calls are generally charged to the account of the originating telephone. In many situations, however, other billing methods are desired. For instance, a call originator may wish to place a collect call, where the receiving party, rather than the call originator, is billed for the call. A collect call may be desired where the call is for the primary benefit of the receiver or where the account associated with the receiving phone belongs to the originating caller himself. Alternatively, an originating caller may wish to have a call charged to a third party telephone account or to a credit card account, such as a Local Exchange Card (LEC) offered by a local telephone company. Alternative billing schemes benefit users by providing more convenient methods of billing and benefit phone companies by increasing the number of revenue sources.
Because it is difficult to verify the identity of a user and because an account, although previously valid, may no longer be valid, there is a serious potential for abuse of alternative billing schemes. Because such fraudulent use of phone services results in lost revenue for phone companies, fraud is compensated for with higher rates to paying customers. It is important, therefore, to phone companies and paying customers, to insure against fraudulent use of alternative billing schemes.
In order to reduce fraudulent use of alternative billing schemes, some method must exist for validating the authority of a user to employ one of these alternative billing schemes. In a collect call situation, for instance, a method must exist for verifying whether the receiving party or the account associated with the receiving telephone is properly authorized to accept a collect call. Such verification might include insuring that the account associated with the receiving phone is current, that its bill paying history is adequate and that the account holder has not previously declared that collects calls will not be accepted. In the case of third party billing or credit card billing, a method must exist for verifying the existence of the credit account or of the third party to be billed and, possibly, for requesting authorization from the credit card company or the third party.
Currently, many phone companies employ Line Information Data Bases (LIDBs) for validating authorizations. LIDBs are private data bases providing such services as Originating Line Number Screening, Calling Card Validation, Billing Number Screening, Calling Card Fraud and Public Telephone Checks. LIDBs typically contain all of the valid telephone and card numbers in their regions and the necessary information to perform billing verification. Upon receipt of authorization from LIDB, the telephone company will connect the call to the receiving party. Note that if the call is a collect call, the telephone company will have to receive authorization from the receiving party, in addition to the LIDB authorization. LIDBs are typically organized regionally as stand-alone systems. Efforts are under way, however, to integrate regional LIDBs into a larger entity.
In addition to LIDBs, Billing Number Screening (BNS) data bases are also employed for authorization validation. Essentially, a BNS is a telephone company internal data base for maintaining histories of user names, credit card numbers and phone numbers, especially those which have a history of failure to pay or a history of failure to receive LIDB approval. A BNS may also contain cross references between receivers who routinely decline to accept charges from particular originators. A BNS is typically employed as a pre-screen or filter which serves to terminate a requested call, based on prior history, prior to initiating an LIDB query.
In operation, upon receiving a request for an alternative billing scheme, a telephone company will attempt to validate authorization. After checking other internal databases for validation, the telephone system queries an external LIDB. If the LIDB grants authorization to make the requested alternative billing call, the phone system dials the requested number and waits for a response. If the response is a busy tone, the call is terminated. If the line is not busy but, after some predetermined number of rings, there is no answer, the phone system declares time-out and terminates the call. If, however, an off-hook condition is detected, that is, if someone picks up the dialed telephone, then the call originator and the requested party are connected. In a collect call situation, of course, the parties are not connected until the requested party accepts the charges.
While LIDBs reduce losses associated with alternative billing schemes, they come with a heavy price. For every validation query, regardless of whether authorization is granted, the phone company is charged a query fee. For some telephone companies these query fees can run into the tens of millions of dollars per month. These costs are generally passed on to consumers in the form of higher rates for service.
One area of particular concern to telephone companies, with respect to LIDB costs, is collect-call-only telephones. Collect-call-only telephones are telephones which are designed to make collect calls and no others. These phones are employed in order to avoid damage from any attempted theft of coins. These phones are most often employed in correctional facilities and high crime areas.
Briefly, collect-call-only telephones include a keypad and a telephone handset but no coin-receiving slots. These telephones are typically coupled to the phone network through an automated operator system which is designed to preclude direct voice contact between call originators and phone company employees. This is, in part, to avoid harassing comments and threats to live operators.
The details of a typical collect-call-only telephone call is shown in FIG. 1. In order to originate a call, at step 10, an off-hook condition is detected on the collect-call-only telephone, and the automated operator generates a message to the effect of, xe2x80x9cplease enter the requested numberxe2x80x9d. After dialing the desired number, the caller is asked to provide relevant information at step 20. For example, the automated operator may prompt the caller to xe2x80x9cplease state your namexe2x80x9d. After providing name and requested telephone number, the caller waits while the automated operator seeks authorization to place the call. First, at step 30, the Negative database is checked. The Negative database contains numbers that will be blocked from dialing by the caller. These numbers are typically those of called parties who have requested that their telephone numbers be blocked by the caller calling system. At step 35 if the number is blocked, the call is terminated at step 140. If the call is validated by the Negative database, Fraud or BNS database validation is initiated at step 40. If the Fraud or BNS database does not authorize the call at step 50, the call terminates at step 140. If the Fraud or BNS database authorizes the call at step 50, LIDB authorization is initiated at step 60. Likewise, if the LIDB does not authorize the call at step 70, the call terminates at step 140.
If the LIDB authorizes the call in step 70, the automated operator dials the requested party at step 80. If the automated operator detects a busy signal at step 90, the call is terminated at step 140. At step 100, if the requested phone rings a predetermined number of times without answering, the automated operator declares a time-out and, again, the call is terminated at step 140. If, however, the automated operator detects an off-hook condition at step 100, it assumes that an individual has answered the phone and initiates a collect call message at step 110. The collect call message informs the receiver that a collect call has been requested and provides the name of the caller which was recorded at the initiation of the call. If the requested party indicates a willingness to accept the charges for the call at step 120, the caller and the requested party are connected for conversation at step 130. If, at step 120, the requested party refuses to accept the charges, the call is terminated at step 140.
While the collect-call-only telephones may be installed anywhere, a particular location is at correctional facilities, which creates concern for telephone companies which do not typically, apply to other locations. One reason that phone companies are particularly concerned with correctional facility collect-call-only telephones is the high rate of prematurely terminated call. This results from the fact that after LIDB validation authorization, there are still three cases in which a collect call may be prematurely terminated. These three conditions are a busy tone, a no answer time-out and a refusal to accept charges. Only if all of these hurdles are passed can a collect call be completed.
It is estimated that nearly seventy percent of all correctional facility collect calls are prematurely terminated after receiving LIDB authorization validation. Because each LIDB query is billable to the requesting phone company, and because a large number of collect calls from correctional facilities are prematurely terminated, a large number of LIDB charges are incurred without a subsequent billable event, i.e., completed telephone call. In the scenario above, LIDB costs are incurred on approximately ninety-five percent of all calls made, while five only percent are blocked by the Negative or Fraud databases, before the LIDB is checked. While telephone companies in general are subjected to substantial LIDB inquiry charges per billable event, or completed call, telephone companies which serve correctional facilities are subjected to even greater LIDB charges per billable event as a result of the high number of LIDB queries for incomplete calls. Although collect calls from correctional facilities are often subject to an initial fee of between two and three dollars at the outset of a call, these fees are generally destined for the correctional facility itself as a type of user-fee. These fees do not, therefore, offset the costs of unnecessary LIDB queries. As a result, charges for unnecessary LIDB queries are generally be passed on to the paying customers of the telephone companies in the form of higher rates.
A method and system is desired, therefore, which will substantially reduce or eliminate unnecessary database queries related to alternative billing schemes and collect call schemes in particular.
The present invention is directed toward a system and method for reducing the number of authorization validations in a phone system.
One advantage of the present invention is that is reduces the number of authorization validation queries necessary in alternative billing schemes.
Another advantage of the present invention is that it may be employed in collect call systems, credit card calling systems and third party billing systems.
Another advantage of the present invention is that it can be employed with collect-call-only telephones.
Yet another advantage of the present invention is that it may be employed in existing telephone systems without any additional hardware.
In one embodiment, when a call originator requests an alternative form of billing for a telephone call, an authorization validation is postponed until an off-hook condition is detected on the requested phone line. In this way, if a call is prematurely terminated due to a busy signal or no-answer time-out, no authorization validation charges are incurred.
Delaying an authorization validation until an off-hook condition is detected is possible because, while an authorization validation typically takes less than one-half of a second, a call receiver typically takes more than one-half a second to place the handset to the his or her ear. As a result, the phone connection will be complete by the time the receiving party places the phone to their ear. A typical receiving party, therefore, will not notice any significant time delay between the time of pick-up and the time of connection.
In a preferred embodiment, for collect calls, authorization validations are delayed until after the requested party indicates a willingness to accept charges. In this way, authorization validations charges are avoided, not only for busy signals and time-outs, but also in cases where the requested party declines to accept the calling charges. Authorization validations, thus, are initiated only when absolutely necessary. That is, validations occur only where a requested party has not only answered a phone but also has indicated a willingness to accept the charges for the call.
Although the requested party will be waiting on-hold during the authorization validation, because authorization validations take less the one-half a second, the delay will be practically transparent to the receiver. In the event that authorization validation is denied, the call is terminated. Where permitted, phone companies may choose to record the authorization validation denial, and the reasons therefore, in an internal data base for future reference.
Further features and advantages of the present invention, as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments of the present invention, are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.